head to head · open source
gitleaks vs database-lab-engine
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 481 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. database-lab-engine has 2,717 stars, 84 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gitleaks leads on adoption by 981% (29,364 vs 2,717 stars). gitleaks is written in Go under MIT; database-lab-engine is written in Go under Apache-2.0. gitleaks has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, database-lab-engine 3%. database-lab-engine was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ci-cd, cicd), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| gitleaks | database-lab-engine | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 84 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gitleaks if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick database-lab-engine if
- You want the database-lab-engine feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and database-lab-engine fits your workflow better
About gitleaks
Gitleaks is an MIT licensed, Go based command line tool that detects hardcoded secrets such as passwords, API keys, and tokens in git repositories, files, and standard input, and it serves developers and security teams that need to keep credentials out of source control.
read the full gitleaks overview →
About database-lab-engine
Database Lab Engine is an open source Go project that provides database branching and thin cloning for PostgreSQL environments. It lives in the infrastructure and operations ecosystem, around database orchestration, CI/CD, and schema migration workflows. The project lets teams create many PostgreSQL environments from existing databases without copying all data for each environment.
read the full database-lab-engine overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gitleaks or database-lab-engine more popular?
gitleaks has 29,364 GitHub stars and database-lab-engine has 2,717. gitleaks has the larger community by that measure.
Are gitleaks and database-lab-engine free?
Both are open source. gitleaks is licensed under MIT and database-lab-engine under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gitleaks and database-lab-engine?
gitleaks is written in Go and database-lab-engine in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gitleaks or database-lab-engine?
Choose gitleaks if you want the larger community (29,364 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose database-lab-engine if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.